1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a scanning apparatus, and more particularly to a compact multi-functional scanning apparatus with a retractable flatbed scanner.
2. Related Art
A sheet-fed scanning apparatus has a sheet-fed scan capability, and a flatbed scanning apparatus has a flatbed scan capability, whereas a composite scanning apparatus possesses both of the flatbed and sheet-fed scan capabilities. So, due to its versatility, the composite scanning apparatus becomes a document scanner frequently used in the office.
Usually, the composite scanning apparatus is composed of an A4-size sheet-fed scanner and an A4-size flatbed scanner, or composed of an A3-size sheet-fed scanner and an A3-size flatbed scanner. The A4-size composite scanning apparatus is designed to scan a sheet of size of an A4, or Letter sheet. The A3-size composite scanning apparatus, on the other hand, is more flexible and is fit for scanning documents of various sizes sheets.
However, it is not common for users to scan A3-size documents. In addition, the A3-size composite scanning apparatus occupies a relatively large space and is not suitable for small offices.